Posted
by
Soulskill
on Friday June 22, 2012 @05:30PM
from the block-first-ask-questions-later dept.

An anonymous reader writes with an update to news from last month that many popular file-sharing sites, including the Pirate Bay, had been blocked in India. Now, India's Madras High Court has amended its earlier decision. "The court order wasn’t targeted at a specific site or ISP and gave the copyright holder carte blanche to demand broad blockades. The ISPs were seen as the bad guys by subscribers and 'Anonymous' groups, but had no other option than to comply." Instead of forcing ISPs to block an entire site in order to prevent the sharing of a single file, now only particular URLs must be blocked. "The new order was issued following an appeal filed by a consortium of ISPs."

Good for India.Now all sites need to do is include a system which allows near infinite amounts of URL'sFor instance encode page ID's as a sum of a large list of digits with a modulo or something more creative and less predictable.

To block individual URLs, you have to run the traffic through a filtering proxy. A simple DNS manipulation is easily circumvented. A proper rerouting through a filtering proxy isn't. (Not that it's particularly hard, but it requires more than just choosing a different resolver.)

Which could be interpreted to mean that any copyright holder now has the right to effectively block or render moot HTTPS across all of India. I mean, do you trust your bank account info to an ISP-provided "secure proxy"? I sure wouldn't.

India is a land of anachronisms and the government and courts are in the 20th century or before.

For example: I have a huge problem in mailing a DVD / CD to a non-Indian address. The post office (like Indian Railways, India Post is very good - I came to this conclusion after using postal systems in US, Canada, UK, Japan and China) refuses to accept a DVD / CD even if detailed declarations are given. I have asked the relevant authorities "show me where it says a DVD cannot be mailed" and they fail!

But such rules are not uniform across the country and we can use the "don't ask don't tell" policy - lie to the post office clerk the shipment is is only documents and they have no problem in accepting. They forget the simple fact that in this century anyone can upload or download any sensitive data rather than mailing a DVD.

Indian courts are an equal mix of liberal and conservative.

Liberal as far as social attitudes are concerned. For example: the recent ruling by Delhi High Court decriminalizing LGBT relations which was actually a Victorian era rule imposed by British modeled on the super conservative Christian attitudes. And who are the British now...innocent nature documentary hosts!!!

Conservative as far as big business is concerned...frequently we have rulings which favor big business over environment and social issues. Environmental issues are also waylaid by well intentioned good Samaritans like Greenpeace India when they target issues like "diesel fuel use in cell phone tower generators" - as if this country has no other pressing issue.

Indian courts do not understand Internet. What they understand is the narrow perspective as explained by misguided (and evil) anti piracy advocates of Indian cinema and media industry - the Indian versions of MPAA and RIAA.

What Indian needs is a home grown EFF - Electronic Frontier Foundation with proper funding and committed personnel. Else the situation will get worse.

You should have taken it up with the post master or simply used a different post office. My mother used to work at post office, and according to her, there should be no reason to refuse DVDs (Infact they are supposed to only refuse hazardous items, to comply with local and international postal (ITU) regulations).